News of the extended network of faculty, alumni, students, visiting researchers, and mission partners is regularly updated, and some of the big ideas or major events in Global Christianity are covered in the CGCM News.
African Association for the Study of Religions 2022 Virtual Conference
The African Association for the Study of Religions is thrilled to be gathering online this summer to hear extraordinary papers, keynotes, and celebrate the Association turning 30 years old! The virtual conference will take place June 26-27, 2022.
While the topics covered are heavily influenced by COVID-19, there will be a wide variety of addresses that will also explore the environment in crisis, constitutional crises, trauma in literature and film, gender, etc. You are warmly invited to join in on this joyous event.
To register, please click here.
To view the schedule, please click here.
Please note that there is no registration fee. However, your registration will not be approved unless you have paid this year’s AASR Membership fees. To pay membership fees, please visit www.a-asr.org and choose "Join Us."
If you have any questions, concerns, or need assistance along the way, please email the General Secretary, Nathanael Homewood, at njh2@rice.edu.
Call for Papers for Online Conference on “Missionary Activity and Postcolonial Theology” ~ June 18, 2022.
Tomsk Theological Seminary in Russia will host a one-day online conference panel on the theme of "Missionary Activity and Postcolonial Theology". The conference will take place on June 18, 2022.
Abstracts are due on June 14th. The working languages will be English and Russian.
See the attached letter for details.
Call for Papers: Global Christianity as a Women’s Movement
Dr. Angel D. Santiago-Vendrell, STH alumn, E.Stanley Jones Associate Professor of Evangelism at Asbury Theological Seminary, and guest editor of Religions, invites paper submissions for a special issue of the journal Religions on the topic of "Global Christianity as a Women's Movement."
The Special Issue seeks articles by historians, missiologists/theologians, religious scholars, anthropologists, and sociologists of Christianity that advance the scholarship of global Christianity as a women’s movement that address the question: what does putting women’s experiences at the center of the research agenda mean for global Christianity?
- Abstract submission deadline: August 15, 2022
- Notification of abstract acceptance: August 25, 2022
- Full manuscript deadline: January 3, 2023
For more information on the Call for Papers, submission guidelines, and contact information, visit this website.
2023 Wesleyan Theological Society Annual Meeting & Call for Papers
Wesleyan Theological Society Annual Meeting
March 2-4, 2023
Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky
To Spread Through All the Earth Abroad: Wesleyan-Holiness Theology and Global Christianity
Plenary Session Speaker:
Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu
Baeta-Grau Professor of African Christianity and Pentecostal Theology
President, Trinity Theological Seminary, Legon, Ghana
Paper proposals are invited on a wide range of topics that might enable Wesleyan-Holiness theology to intersect with the “global south” where much of the vibrancy of Christianity can be found today. Questions might include (but are not limited to): In what ways can Wesleyan soteriology and other theological distinctives help inform the growing theological activity in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania? How can it be global? How can they be contextualized in ways that celebrate the uniqueness of various cultures or national identities while remaining distinctively Wesleyan? What can North American Wesleyan-Holiness theologians learn from their counterparts in the southern hemisphere? How can Christian spirituality and praxis in those regions of the world help revitalize the Wesleyan tradition in North America and help us rethink Wesleyan theology? In what ways do non-Western Christians in diaspora reshape North American churches in the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition? How was the Wesleyan-Holiness revival, along with its core teachings, transmitted and appropriated in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania? In what ways did it ride on the coattails of colonialism? How did it contribute to social transformation? What were its connections to the growth of global Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity?
Papers from scholars from all academic disciplines focusing on these intersections are encouraged. Here are some examples:
- Biblical Studies: Explore passages pertaining to cross-cultural missions, inculturation, cross-inter-cultural intersections, or Jewish-Gentile interactions in the early Christian communities.
- Historical Studies: Tell stories of how Wesleyan, Methodist, or Holiness missions developed in countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, or Oceania. Think how the Wesleyan revival, with its core doctrines, was transmitted and appropriated in these regions. How did it contribute to social change? How did it intersect with global Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity?
- Intercultural Studies: Examine how can Wesleyan soteriology and other theological distinctives help inform the growing theological activity in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania. Investigate how non-Western Christians in diaspora are reshaping North American churches in the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition.
- Moral Theology: Contemplate how might Wesleyan-Holiness theology’s intersection with global Christianity be brought to bear on contemporary understandings of justice in its various dimensions.
- Practical Theology/Christian Formation: Examine non-Western Wesleyan spirituality and identify best practices for the revitalization of the Wesleyan-Holiness churches in the West.
- Systematic Theology: Formulate a Wesleyan theology of missions or intercultural relations.
- Theology and Pop Culture: Examine American popular Christian culture (eg. books, music, movies) and its impact among Christians in the southern hemisphere. Investigate non-Western pop culture phenomena in the West (eg. K-Pop, etc.) and their implications for Western and non-Western Christian relations.
- Theology and Preaching: Rethink the preaching of missions by taking into account the shift of Christianity’s vitality to the southern hemisphere.
- Women’s Studies: Examine the role of prominent indigenous women leaders or pioneers and their contributions. Demonstrate how the Wesleyan-Holiness traditions’ contact with the non-Western cultures empowered women in those cultures and those from the West.
Submit 2023 Paper proposals to the link below: (Due October 1st, 2022)
https://forms.gle/jMzqHaNMFnzzzGVRA
For information on membership renewals and annual meeting registration, click on this link or visit WTSociety.com/annual-meeting.
CCCW World Christianity Seminar, May 25th
The next CCCW and Faculty of Divinity World Christianities seminar is on this Wednesday, 25th May 2022, 16.00 BST, which will be a launch and discussion of a book on history of CCCW, From Henry Martyn to World Christianity: Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide by Ian Randall, Graham Kings and Muthuraj Swamy. This will be in a blended format, and you are very welcome to join in person at the Woolf Institute, Cambridge, CB3 0AA, or on Zoom.Ecclesiological Investigations Conference on “Decolonizing Churches”- June 22-25, 2022
Call for Papers: PTS 2023 World Christianity Conference
CALL FOR PAPERS 2023
WAR, PANDEMIC, AND CLIMATE CHANGE: GLOBAL CRISES—PAST AND PRESENT—AND THEIR PLACE IN WORLD CHRISTIANITY SCHOLARSHIP
Fourth International Interdisciplinary Conference co-organized by the World Christianity and History of Religions Program (History & Ecumenics Dept.) and the Overseas Ministries Study Center, Princeton Theological Seminary, New Jersey, USA. March 14 (Tuesday) - March 17th (Friday) 2023
In the last two decades, the study of world Christianity has significantly expanded its horizons. A testament to that is the growth of academic programs, chairs, conferences, and publications devoted to studies of Christianity's kaleidoscopic local and global manifestations. Privileging lived experiences, world Christianity scholarship nowadays mainly focuses on concrete contexts, in the belief that faith should not be isolated from the rest of life. World Christianity scholarship, therefore, encourages approaches attentive to interactions across fluid borders—cultural, economic, existential, political, and religious—to promote embodied interpretations of these complex and interrelated realities. Whereas previous conferences asked questions about theory and methodology, our 2023 conference calls for fresh inquiry into the nature and responsibility of world Christianity scholarship at a time of overlapping crises of such ominous magnitude that the very ecology of life on planet earth looks increasingly imperiled. In short, in circumstances like today's, what should we as concerned public scholars be doing differently, how, and why, with an eye on the past as well as the present? Accordingly, we welcome panels and papers on any and all topics relevant to our conference theme, whether contemporary or historical. As in previous conferences, in 2023 the Global South will remain our primary although not exclusive frame of reference. We particularly encourage case-based studies grounded in historical/empirical research, while proposals from ethical, theological, and missiological perspectives will also be considered.
For a fuller description of the theme CLICK HERE.
Proposal Deadline: September 30, 2022
Notification of successful proposals: October 31, 2022
· This is a hybrid conference with both in-person and virtual options.
· An email on fees, registration, accommodations, and related matters will be forthcoming.
· Limited travel subsidies will be available for participants from the Global South with accepted paper/panel proposals.
For questions, please contact : worldchristianityconference@ptsem.edu.
Conveners: Afe Adogame, Raimundo Barreto, Thomas Hastings, Richard Fox Young
Highlights from CGCM Visiting Researcher, Dr. Rachel Bacon
The Center for Global Christianity and Mission celebrates the diverse and valuable contributions of our Faculty Associates.
Here are some recent contributions from Dr. Rachel Bacon:
Publication: McCarthy, Michael J., Morgan Hustead, Rachel Bacon, Yolanda E. Garcia, Dorothy J. Dunn, Heather J. Williamson, and Julie A. Baldwin. “Development and Validation of a Community Assessment Survey for Diverse Rural Family Caregivers of People with Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias.” Family and Community Health 44(3):126-135. [web link]
Presentation: Bacon, Rachel J. “Retrospective Measures on Parents’ Attendance and Religiosity in the U.S.: How Far Back Can We Go, and What Does it Tell Us.” Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. Portland, OR. October 22.
Call for Papers: Loyalties and Transloyalties in the History of Medical Missions
CALL FOR PAPERS
LOYALTIES AND TRANSLOYALTIES IN THE HISTORY OF MEDICAL MISSIONS
20-22 October 2022
VID Specialized University, Stavanger, Norway
This workshop explores new approaches to examine the history of medical missions from the perspectives of loyalties and transloyalties. Throughout the history of medical missions and World Christianity, tension persisted, for example between medicine and evangelism, between scientific development and ethical reflections, and between medical intervention and divine healing. Interplay of interests, values, and loyalties was found striking between various agents, such as between mission boards, missionaries, and colonial powers, and between mission hospitals, churches, and local communities. Research focusing on multi-layered identities and loyalties, as well as negotiations and shifts in-between (tentatively understood as “transloyalities”), would illuminate the complexity of human relations and the multifaceted processes in various contact zones in the history of medical missions and World Christianity.
The Centre of Mission and Global Studies at VID Specialized University, in collaboration with the Faculty of Health Studies and the Mission and Diakonia Archives at VID, invites presentation proposals from all disciplines in the social sciences, humanities, and beyond. Topics to be addressed may include (but are not limited to):
· “Healing bodies and saving souls”: medical missionaries’ professional loyalties
· Medical missions, colonial/national powers, and international organizations
· Conflicting and merging theories and practices of healing
· Medical missions, secularization, and modernization discourse
· History of diakonia; the deacon and deaconess movements
· Fundraising in medical and health work
· Cooperation and conflict in medical philanthropy
· Metaphors of disease and spiritual illness of the Church
· The meaning of the term “health” both physically and spiritually and definitions of terms such as “body”, “ability”, and “disability”
· Gender issues in medical and health work
Based on submitted abstracts, we will select 20 participants to present their papers. The cost of board and lodging of the presenters during the workshop will be covered. Limited travel subsidies are available for selected participants with accepted paper proposals.
Deadline to submit application: May 31, 2022. Please submit your application, consisting of a paper title, an abstract (max. 300 words), a short bio, and a note about travel subsidy if you wish to apply (approx. cost of airfare), to marina.wang@vid.no. We will notify the selected participants of acceptance by 10 June 2022. The workshop language will be English.
Deadline to submit a draft of a full paper: September 30, 2022. An edited volume of revised papers or a special issue in an established journal in the field is the planned output of the workshop.
For any queries and further information, please contact the workshop convener, Dr. Marina Xiaojing Wang (marina.wang@vid.no).
Dana L. Robert Awarded the William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professorship
Hearty congratulations to the Center for Global Christianity and Mission's Director, Dr. Dana L. Robert, on being awarded Boston University's William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professorship!
